Elevator systems are in widespread use for carrying passengers among various levels within buildings. Elevator systems traditionally have included hall call buttons that allow an elevator passenger to provide an indication of a desired direction of travel when placing an elevator call. Once an elevator car is available at the location where the call was placed, the passenger enters the elevator car and uses a car operating panel to provide an indication of the passenger's desired destination. Such systems have proven useful and reliable for many years.
More recently, different elevator system configurations have been introduced that allow passengers to indicate a desired destination from outside of an elevator car. Some such systems include a kiosk or passenger interface in a lobby. Passengers can enter desired destinations using the kiosk. The elevator system determines which car to assign to each passenger request and provides an indication to the passenger of the assigned elevator car. A variety of configurations of such systems have been proposed for communicating the passenger's intended destination and for communicating information to the passenger so that they board the correct elevator car.
One limitation of such systems is that the passenger typically has to remember which elevator car to board and there may be some time between the passenger learning that information and actually boarding the elevator car. Another drawback associated with such systems is that they provide limited security over who can board an elevator car. There are situations, for example, where elevator system access should be limited for security reasons.